In the food industry flowable foods can be contained in a casing or outer sleeve. One example of this is the packaging of meats, such as sausages or frankfurters, where a ground meat product is provided in a flowable state and is inserted into a casing, which results in the final form of the sausages or frankfurters that end up packaged and for sale on the market. A single, unitary casing filled with the flowable food can result in a single cylindrical filled tube. In order to obtain smaller length filled tubes or casings that are more conducive to sale on the retail market, the single filled tube can be pinched at a series of spaced intervals and/or twisted to create dividing points that segregate segments of the product into multiple, linked filled food products having much shorter lengths than the single filled tube.
There are many current ways to carry out the pinching technique that creates an unfilled space within the casing that makes up the spaced interval. One technique is to use a pair of opposing metal pinchers or butterfly links on a pair of rotating belts that can contain a notch therein where the opposite pinchers nest together with one another and tighten around a portion of the filled casing that travels between them. Thus, as the pair of pinchers come together with the filled casing therebetween, they apply enough pressure to evacuate enough of the filled food from an area of the casing to create a space for later twisting. These pinchers can be made of steel and mounted upon a chain link belt to advance the pinchers adjacent to the filled casing traveling in a machine direction between the pair of rotating belts containing the pinchers.
One problem encountered with the use of pinchers on steel chains is that the chains can stretch as they are run at rapid speeds alongside the casings. Accordingly, the chains are often not run at such high speeds, however, at the expense of process efficiency. Another problem with such chains is that they can become stretched, which can create gaps or pinch points between the chains that can catch the casing and undesirably pinch and/or tear the casing.